Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Two years ago I, foolishly, decided to start putting live music on at The South Beach Hotel in Troon - we call it South Beach Sessions.

Since then we've lost far too much money but had a ball doing so in the company of Grammy winners such as Albert Lee and John Jorgenson, herpes of my youth such as Whitesnake legend Bernie Marsden and some wonderful bands including The Chaplins, JJ Gilmour, and Bernie Torme!

The latest wonderful experience was last Sunday night with "The Goddess of Soul" Dona Oxford. With her talented young band she treated the audience to an evening of soul, blues, gospel and an astounding chunk of Boogie Woogie. It had to be shared.

But here's the plea, music promoters all over the UK are struggling for any number of reasons but the next time you see someone putting on live music in your location please think about supporting it. You can be assured that they are doing it for love of the music and not for the money and supporting local business is not just about buying some beef olives and steak pie at the butchers - Live music needs an audience and small venues can offer the most amazing experiences too.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Alba Golf in Fife have launched a brand new website focussing solely on their personalised golf tour business.

Owner Christine Seaton has been involved in the golf sector for more years than she cares to admit too and is a well known face at Scotland's top hotels, resorts and golf courses. Christine has been out on her own operating Alba Tours for a number of years specialising in independent groups and packages for the Edinburgh tattoo. Golf has always remained a part of the overall mix but for 2016 it was felt that the golf section needed a presence of its own hence the launch of Alba Golf.

The site is a simple site reflecting the quality ethos of the business. Christine offers a bespoke highly personalised service for limited number of golf groups every year with her personality central to every communication, itinerary and recommendation.

We have helped not only with the sourcing of imagery but assisted in content writing and giving the site a personal feel that may distinguish it from other larger more corporate offerings.

The site is powered by our own Claymore Content Management Solution and allows full control over content, full page images, headers, features and event the creation of an image gallery on every page. The site allows for the addition of new golf and hotel partenrs as required and the integration of blog features and even the creation of itineraries and programmes.

Ian McCaig explained the new functions,

Using our own Content Management Solution allows us to develop useful tools which can then be used by other clients. The new itinerary planner function was built as part of the project for Hebridean Cruises but was developed to be a fully operational tool for other tour operators and travel professionals. It means that with a simple click and add travel websites can add their own personalised itineraries and tour programmes.

Following on from the highly acclaimed launch of the Scotland's Best Bed and Breakfasts website earlier this year we have been helping some of the association's members improve their own web presence and are delighted to have been involved in building a brand new site for Dunfermline four star Bunree Bed and Breakfast.

Owners Hamish and Una Donaldson, contacted us after the SBBBS launch and decided to go with our Open Rooms Standard package based around one of our Themed designs. The couple had an old website which they couldn't update and didn't have any control of imagery or content.

The new site allows the couple to manage not only their page content but add image galleries, change headers and add their own promotional features all year round.

Open Rooms website packages are all fully responsive as standard, working equally well on mobile, tablets and desktop - something that is now no longer desirable but critical.

The B&B use Freetobook for their booking engine and the link to the booking page was embedded prominently into the site to encourage more direct bookings.

The Open Rooms Standard site is the most popular package that we offer to guest house and bed and breakfasts and ensures that as well as offering a content managements solution that has been designed for the hospitality business owner it provides support in helping market more effectively on and off line.

Projects manager Claire, explained further,

It is not just about building a site then walking away. As well as providing the "how to" we also try to teach the "why" as well. We explain the benefits of good content, strong destination imagery and make things like search tags easy to understand. We emphasise the need to keep building relationships through newsletters, social media and other distribution channels and of course reducing the cost of bookings by converting more DIRECT bookings is very relevant to all accommodation businesses regardless of size.